Mountain Study

"Mountain Study," oil on panel, 6x8

When you live here in the upper Midwest, you don't see mountains. There are big hills, even distant vistans, but no true mountains. Most of Iowa is rolling or flat plains. One of my personal exercises is to imagine other landscapes and other climes. Clearly, either photos or previous travels, or both, have been useful. 

In Mountain Study I was interested not only in the trees and colors but in depth. To suggest distant mountains meant light values and virtually no identifiable edges, with distant colors going bluer and bluer and more and more pale. Studies like this can translate into believable works on a much larger scale. 

Pappajohn Sculpture Park

 

"Sculpture Park View," wc/ink on paper

At the west end of downtown the Pappajohn Sculpture Park occupies almost five acres of parkland reclaimed during around of urban renewal over fifteen years ago. The Park was the brain child of the Pappajohns who also donated their expansive eollection of contemporary sculptures. The park was designed as a kind of outdoor museum, with :"rooms" made by berms and fencing, with serious consideration given to viewing experiences. The landscape architects considered views from cars passing on either side, views from the sidewalks, and views from the interior toward points of importance. 

A group of the Saturday sketchers went to the Sculpture Park last weekend. I sat on a bench and sketched the view toward the downtown skyline to the east, with several sculptures in view (and a few omitted here). The figure on the left is a a hare sitting on a boulder, "Thinker on a Rock" is by Barry Flanagan as an homage to Rodin's famous figure. A duplicate is in the National Gallery. Just it's right is a headless life size figure "Post Balzac," by Judith Shea, a sculptural allusion to Rodin's study for a monument to the famou French writer. And to the right of that is one of Louise Bourgeois' spiders, which is perhaps seven feet tall. The early spring colors are still muted but the grass is turning bright greens. 

Winter on the Creek

Although most of my current work is either oil or watercolor, in the past I've explored the use of casein. Casein paint is made using milk protein with oil to make an emulsion. The paint will keep well in sealed tubes and handles rather like oil, though it's water soluble and dries amazingly fast. In the decades before acrylic paint was introduced, casein (and also gouache) were go-to formulations because of convenience and speed. 

"Winter on the Creek," casein on board, 6x8

This particular work is yet another painting of Druid Hill Creek in winter. The view is similar to others posted in the past.  

Saturday

Last weekend was chilly and Saturday was a grey day. Nonetheless, spring is well along here--crocus and narcissi, forsythia all blooming or budding. The sketch group decided on Waterworks Park since the flowering trees in the arboretum are starting to bloom and along the river honeysuckle is almost out. 

"Bridge on the Raccoon," wc/ink, abt 5x10

Two Saturdays ago (March 31) the group went to the same destination. I did a panoramic sketch of the old bridge there that spans the Raccoon River. When we were there this time it occurred to me that doing a different view of the same subject might be instructive. Unlike two weeks ago, there was no one else there. I parked and did the sketch above. As ever, I began with a graphite sketch, laid in color, inked much of the bridge then refined color, value and edges. This took maybe an hour and a half. 

Spring Haze

Along Druid Hill Creek are uncountable wild honeysuckle bushes that often burst into leaf this time of year. They're a principal part of the undergrowth along the banks during summer, when the foliage is so thick and abundant you can't see the creek below. This time of year though, the bare brown-black banks and green-brown water reflect bare trees above. And this time of year the partially-open leaf buds give the woods a spring green haze, just at the tops of their tiny branches. 

"Honeysuckle Haze," wc/ink on paper, 7x5

When I do sketches of the creek, I stand in a north window of my home studio, which gives me a view straight downstream. The creek swings from a northeasterly to a northern course just under my window. This is a small watercolor painting, not in a sketchbook. The dark skies and near monochromatic landscape are both common in early April, but the honeysuckle haze means spring is truly here.

Waterworks Bridge

Last Saturday our sketch group decided it was time to check out any early budding and spring flowers in Waterworks Park, the enormous park along the Raccoon River, not far from my home studio. The weather has been warming so that there is a faint glow of green and here and there pink-red halos, but no outright flowers and no fully=leafed trees. But the sun was bright in the cold spring air. 

"Waterworks Bridge," wc on paper, 5x14

I sat in my car and sketched this view of an old bridge across the Raccoon River that now carries pedestrians and cyclists into deeper woods, eventually leading to Greenwood Park, a mile or two north, where the Des Moines Art Center is located. This old steel truss bridge probably dates back a century, and it's appropriately rusted and worn. In order to get as much of the approach and a bit of the river into the image I adopted a wide panorama for this one. I sketched the main structure of the bridge but omitted parts that would have been confusing, in favor of the overall image. The trees at either end were actually present, but the near bushes and distant tree line were invented. As many landscape painters do, I "pushed" the chroma of the near bushes and distant trees as well as the blue of the water. In reality the Raccoon is often muddy=brown in spring.  

Druid Hill Gouache

"Aftermath," gouache on gesso panel, 6x8

Although it's one of the art media I've tried, gouache isn't a big part of my practice. Over the years I've done portraits, landscapes and even still life in gouache, but watercolor and oil paintings far outnumber those. Still, there is a silky feel to the paint, a little like oils, and gouache is water soluble like watercolor and acrylic, but opaque. Some call gouache opaque watercolor, actually. 

This work was done looking out my studio window one very snowy day in the middle of February 2020. The weather as I remember it was frigid but sunny, as is often the case following a big storm.